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Police: Teen pack attacks, robs two people waiting for bus in Dorchester

Boston Police report a man and woman standing at Washington and Erie streets found themselves surrounded by 10 to 15 boys and girls, who began beating them when they resisted a robbery attempt around 9:30 p.m yesterday:

The female victim stated that she and her male friend were waiting for their bus connection when she was attacked by a young female suspect. The female suspect kicked the victim, knocking her into a fence. When the victim attempted to stand up, she was surrounded by a group of approximately 10-15 individuals. At this time, the victim was assaulted again by the female suspect. At this time, a male suspect grabbed her purse and stole several items. The male victim, in an attempt to aid the female victim, intervened allowing the female victim to seek safety at a local market and call police. At this time, the group focused their attention on the male victim, assaulting him as well.

Police managed to round up nine of the alleged attackers - all aged between 13 and 16. However, officers on the scene had to radio for reinforcements when some of the other teens returned and tried to break one of their number out of the cruiser about to bring her to the B-3 station for booking - and then had to chase down a female who swiped the woman's purse, sitting on the sidewalk, again.

Police say that during booking, one of the females spat in an officer's face.

The alleged attackers face charges of armed robbery, unarmed robbery, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer causing injuries and disorderly conduct.

Probably some of my students or their innumerable cousins, it's in their walk-zone. This fits with what I've seen in terms of no fear towards to authority. I have seen kids literally throw punches at administrators, and not kids in a blind rage either, but kids who thought that it was fair game. The sad part is when you try to call home, in most cases the parent has failed to provide the school with a working number, or is unavailable all the time every time. Sometimes you get a grandmother who can't control the kid they've been stuck with, but more often than not you get a young woman who sounds like a louder version of her child. They already know what you're gonna say, they get these calls all the time, and they get you off the phone quick. Sometimes they twist what you're reporting around and baselessly threaten to file charges / get you fired. You can tell pretty quickly if a parent has been "court-involved" by the lingo they use. If you ask them to come in for a meeting 7 times out of 10 they won't show up, even for something important like a suspension hearing or a special ed evaluation.

Politicians and community activists can rail all they want about opportunity gaps and the need for more this or that, but bottom line it comes to down to the home environment and parental fitness. These kids see, and ultimately dole out a lot of violence. Nobody is seriously doing anything to stop the cycle. Cops and teachers can't do it all, even though we're really the only ones held accountable for these kids.

She actually said nothing about race, but, yeah, we might all make inferences as to race in this situation, and these inferences might be correct. I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, just making an observation.

If I had a wish list for my students it would be a massive METCO expansion for the girls and a separate school setting for the most disruptive boys. Inner city girls benefit so much from a change in surroundings, it sounds corny and patronizing but I'm speaking from experience. You also have to remove the boys that are causing the trouble. Two or three out of control kids can have a huge negative impact on an otherwise decent class. If you have a kid in the system ask them about the kids who get in trouble the most and you'll see how much of a drain they are. I would also beg for an end to social promotion and summer school "make-up classes", you have to dumb down your teaching if half the kids are below grade level.

Maggots. Can you imagine, no respect for anyone and even worse, no fear. Ship them
Right off to boot camp, see how tough they are. Why bring race into it? Makes you sound like an idiot, bad kids are bad kids, can be from any race.

I lived in Dorchester for 5 years and remember a mom chasing her son down the street while on the phone with the police calling for them to come help her as she had no control over her own kid! largely a cultural thing - people come from other countries where it's acceptable to act like a gang of guns for hire and no one teaches them any different when they move into our neighborhoods. And the most significant predictor of whether a kid will be successful in education and a career or not is how many parents they have.......notice how many single parent households exist in the low income / high crime areas of the city.

My cousin is a DYS social worker, and he gets many cases where the parents decide to finally parent the kid at age 14 and then are mystified as to why they seem to have no ability to control their offspring.

When I lived in Dorchester 15+ years ago I constantly saw groups of very young, unsupervised children roaming around. No doubt by now they're probably the parents of children themselves.

I don't care who your cousin is, or your brother, or your sister, or your friend's uncle, or anybody other than you. It really bugs me when people go "oh my cousin is a _____" and then uses that to lend themselves credibility.

Why can't your cousin come on here and post himself about his cases? Clearly it's not a confidentiality breach since you're here second-hand posting about him.

Hell, I am an anon (not verified) and post all the time as one. You don't have to provide your ID or credentials or anything, but even an anon (not verified) claiming to be a DYS social worker or whatever feels more genuine than the guy who starts off with "My cousin is..."

Is this a new variation of the "source????????????" complaint that boring people like to throw out, assuming everyone that has anything to say is a published academic that only speaks in peer reviewed studies and can never have a personal opinion on anything?

What a weird post. Do you think the guys cousin cares enough to appease the readers of Uhub? No, this is a comment section on Uhub, why would you need a source? I don't think he was trying to lend himself credibility here. Since you don't post ID or credentials on here, you really don't know who is commenting, I could be the cousin.

So sad for the youth's of today. It really has alot to do with there up bringing. When patents tend to forget they need to raise there kids correctly and in the right way. Although we can not put all the blame on the parents, because at 13-16 kids should know right from wrong. Parents need to be more responsible for there kids where abouts and the people they hangout with. As well as the kids taking responsibility for the things they do. This is a sad situation, me being a single parent of 2 girls and 3 boys, who have all grown up and was raised correctly, I must say it was not peaches and cream. But I refused to give up on my kids, all I could do was continue to teach them how to be respectful to themselves as well as others. I can smile today knowing my children weren't followers and they took responsibility for any wrong doing they may have done while growing up. Parents get control over your kids, when you show you do not care, things like this happen. Pay attention to your kids, show them there is more to life then violence.

This is the third or fourth report on these kinds of group robberies/attacks by kids this year. This seems to be a new thing, and I don't think that it just hasn't been reported previously. This kind of thing can't just be hapening separately by coincidence. Is it coming from some sort of local gang-initiated culture, some kind of on-line media (e.g. YouTube) videos encouraging it like "bum fighting," or what? Thirteen-sixteen year old kids don't generally organize themselves into packs to rob and beat people without someone organizng them to do it.

I remember not wanting to walk in that neighborhood 30+ years ago. This is sad generational stuff. Many times the kids learn this behavior directly and purposely from their parents, sometimes it's from too much time in the streets. Some kind of intervention has to happen in order to break the cycle.

With the post WWII development of Randolph as a suburb, it became the place, in short, where people from Dorchester moved when they got a little bit of money and wanted a lawn. That means first the Irish and lower middle class Jews arrived. Then, in the late 1980s/early 1990s Blacks (a sizable number being Haitian), Asians (a sizable number being Vietnamese) and eventually Hispanics began following in the footsteps of the first wave, while the first wave either died off or moved further away.

The commenter is probably noting that when that second wave came to town, they did not necessarily leave the problems of Dorchester/Mattapan behind. Unfortunately for the theory of the poster, while some issues have arisen due to the socioeconomic changes, the crime rate in Randolph is nowhere near that of Dorchester (and mind you, I like Dorchester.)

The displacement of the poor so that the rich can take over is not the answer. Getting cops back out on the beat and ending the politically correct method in which we deal with troubled youth is the answer.

You can't break a cycle from a generation that's already broken these are children that's parents were born in late 70's early 80's I'm an early 80's and I've gone through hell and back some my fault some not I blessed I have no children to ruin today's society.

I don't have a lot of history in that neighborhood, but as large swaths of Boston go up, up, up, that corner of Dorchester seems especially mired in problems.

I don't know what the solution is, but we've been throwing money at it for decades. Is the solution to throw a heck of a lot more money at it, or to just throw up our hands and let people fend for themselves.

This doesn't seem to be about a family hitting a rough patch and needing a little help, this seems to be about generation after generation of little to no personal responsibility.

One 14-year-old female was charged with unarmed robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors requested $1500 cash bail and orders to stay away from her co-defendants, the victims, and the location of the incident. A clerk imposed $1000 bail and the stay-away orders.

The other eight were released on personal recognizance and, like her, told to stay away from the attack site and the victims.

he other eight were released on personal recognizance and, like her, told to stay away from the attack site and the victims.

is really disgusting. The other eight attackers participated in the attack on the couple, so they, too should be punished by some sort of juvie jail term, not released on recognition and good behavior, with a restraining order to stay clear of the victims. Restraining orders really don't work most of the time, which is a huge problem.

Bail <> Punishment
The purpose of bail is to get the defendants to show up in court, no more, no less. The amount is based on what is enough to get them to return which varies based on the means of the defendant, the severity of the crime, priors, etc.

Here in the USA, we have trials first and then determine punishment, if any, at the end.

Unfortunately, there are UHub readers that have no clue how the criminal justice system works, even though they like to complain about it.

Teenager, with only connections to Boston, with a history of not defaulting, yeah, that would be a case for personal recognizance. Now, if they start looking for the victim, that is another story. But we are talking theoreticals at that point.

These kids have no respect for authority. I live in this neighborhood and I have called the cops on them for numerous incidents. Including shooting fireworks directly at my house while my children were sitting on my front porch, burning my hand and fingers. I am so happy to see police officers roaming my streets now after I filed a complaint for the hundred times I've called and not one showed up. I've seen these kids beat on eachother, fights with adults in the neighborhood including me, causing chaos and disruptions on a daily basis. I strongly believe the parents are at fault as much of society. Whatever happened to spanking and punishing your children? The fact that a child can have their parents arrested for spanking them is the main reason why these children have no fear and respect for authority. The beleive they are above the law becaus ethey are minors. Its these children that grow up to be killers because they havent been taught any better. I am happy to see the police actually step in this time. I witnessed the entire incident as it happend in from of my house. Good work Blue last night was a peaceful night in my neck of the hood.

we treat suspects accused of serious crimes differently based on their age. Given the obvious increase in violent crime by so-called "juveniles" over the past decade, perhaps it's time to acknowledge that the current system of excusing behavior instead of holding people responsible for their actions isn't working.

The reality is, teenagers are the most violent age group. Back in the day (nineteenth century), the violent youths were sent to work farms. I'm not saying that these kids should be excused, not in the slightest, only that this is nothing new.